Over Two Dozen Locations to Honor Barry Jennings through Bannering

Nearly one year ago, on August 19, 2008, 53 year old Barry Jennings died, two days before the release of the NIST Final Report on the collapse of WTC7. Jennings had bee serving as Deputy Director of Emergency Services Department for New York City, including on September 11th, 2001, when he saw and heard explosions BEFORE the Twin Towers fell, while attempting to evacuate the WTC7 Command Center with NY Corporation Counsel Michael Hess. Jennings publicly shared his experiences with reporters on the day of 9/11/01, as well as in a lengthy 2007 video interview with Dylan Avery, a small clip of which was the released; subsequently his job was repeatedly threatened and he asked that the taped interview not be released. However, after an interview with Jennings was broadcast by the BBC in their program The Third Tower ostensibly refuting what he had previously stated to Avery, Avery felt compelled to release the full original video interview to show the distortions made by the BBC. The cause of Jennings’ death has not been made public, and a private investigator hired by Avery to discover the cause and circumstances surrounding his death abruptly ended his investigation. (More detail on all of this is available at jenningsmystery.com.) In spite of the significance of Jennings’ position with NYC on 9/11 and his controversial eyewitness testimony regarding the collapse of WTC7, the media has not investigated or reported on his death, nor reported on his statements.

Widespread public action of this nature can bring this unreported story to their attention of courageous investigative journalists and lessen the dangers for those who do attempt to investigate this case. The bannering assumes that working journalists know how little their power is compared to those who run the paper or station. We are appealing to the best part of those who work in media. We appeal to the human curiosity of the everyday reporters. The fact that American mainstream media has not covered how hero Barry Jennings died is more suspicious than what he said when he was alive. It suggests that what he said was very damaging. If we lead real journalists to realize on their own the level of suppression they work in, we lessen the loyalty of workers in very powerful institutions.

Because this is an open and positive appeal to the consciences of these working reporters, this profoundly subversive action is a new form of nonviolence. Such a form could never have existed before the development of the Internet. Please note that standing on a public sidewalk is legal. To participate in this action, please contact JenningsMystery [at] yahoo.com. To witness past examples of bannering to reach workers at powerful institutions, watch these links.